Category: Cruise – general

I book a lot of my clients on Royal Caribbean, and with good reason — I’m a frequent cruiser of the line myself, and because of my good experiences, I always feel comfortable recommending Royal’s wide variety of ships and itineraries.

I have to admit, though, some of Royal’s marketing strategies really drive me up the wall as a travel agent. For example, the popular “Kids Sail Free” promotion only applies to certain cruise sailings, not that you’d know that from the website.

Another popular promotion on the Royal site is the “BOGO” sale – Buy One Get One 50% off, or sometimes even 60% off. What a lot of people don’t know is that this discount is reflected in the price that you seen on Royal Caribbean’s website, and doesn’t add additional discounts to the prices that you see online.

These sales are confusing, to be sure! That’s another reason why it’s good to work with a travel agent: We can help you parse through all the marketing promotions and get the absolute best price for your cruise vacation (kids or no kids).

Now, don’t get me started on the pricing of Royal Caribbean’s drink packages…that’s another story (blog post) entirely….

Travel insurance – like all insurance, really – can seem tricky. But really, it’s just like car insurance, health insurance, etc – you can buy it to cover unexpected expenses during your cruise. The question is, should you? Here are four reasons why I recommend that you should buy travel insurance:

You’re traveling during a dicey time of year, weather-wise. If clients are traveling during hurricane season (August 1-November 30), or leaving a cold part of the country where they’re likely to get snow over the winter months, I always recommend that they take the travel insurance option. During hurricane season, your cruise can be shortened or lengthened by weather – or it may even end up at a different port than you left from! Travel insurance will cover the extra expenses you might incur in a case like this one, such as the need for additional hotels or changes in air travel.

You’re a worrier. Whether you admit it to yourself (and others), like my friend Jill over at FindingJillian, or whether you like to keep it under wraps, if you’re a worrier, you should buy travel insurance. Simply put, insurance will allow you to travel without some of the concerns you might otherwise have about travel interruption, unexpected medical expenses, etc.

You’re going a long way. I always recommend travel insurance to my clients who are going to Alaska, Europe, and other far-from-home areas for their cruise. Why? Because travel insurance will cover your costs to return you home if you run into a medical emergency on your trip – for this alone, I feel like the investment is worth it. I’ll never forget the story of the terminally ill woman who was stranded in a hospital in Alaska, far from her family, because she hadn’t taken out the insurance. (fun fact: One of my grad school classmates wrote this news story!) Which brings me to #4…

You have existing health issues (or are prone to them). Cruising is a great way to travel because it’s low-impact, and it allows a lot of people to see the world who might not be able to travel in other ways. But if you know your health is not great, or that there’s a possibility that something might go wrong on your cruise, always take out the travel insurance. Even if you never use it, you’ll be reassured knowing that you have it.

After a (longer than expected) work-induced hiatus from blogging, I finally sat down today to write one more blog post of 2018 – and set out some goals for blogging in 2019, so I can try to keep myself accountable.

Now that I’m back to work full-time as a college professor, and adding in a part-time gig as a travel agent booking cruises, I’ve found it pretty difficult to find time for the blog. But you know what? Plenty of the other wonderful cruise bloggers I’ve “met” over the past year have full-time jobs and more, and they manage to get it done. I need to do better – and in 2019, I will!

Post more of my cruise ship pictures, from 2018 and before. I put together a photo gallery of my pics from Norwegian Bliss and I could do so many more of these! I think I’m a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of pictures I have, to be honest!

Keep up with my 2019 travels. I’m excited to have three cruises planned already – a B2B Southern Caribbean from San Juan in January 2019, and a week-long trip on Allure of the Seas with my best friend in March 2019. I’ve been a little ambivalent about Royal Caribbean’s megaships in the past, so I’m eager to try the experience again and to see what my friend thinks of it, since she’s only been on smaller ships before.

I’m also looking to post on my Instagram account (@_nerdytraveler) more often. If you’re not doing so already, I hope you’ll follow me there and on Twitter (also @_nerdytravler). Happy cruising in 2019 and beyond!

This is the third of a series of posts designed to provide advice for planning and preparing for your cruise vacation. You can read the first post here and the second post here.

Checking in for a cruise is in many ways similar to other things you may have checked in for before. But because a cruise has a lot more moving parts than say, an airplane flight, there are some noticeable differences.

One of them is timing: You’ll want to check in for your cruise about 1 to 2 weeks before your scheduled departure date. Many cruise lines will close the online check-in window 72 or 48 hours before your sail away, so make sure that you don’t leave this until the last minute. You can also check in earlier too, often up to a few weeks or sometimes months before your cruise. (You’ll usually see a link to check-in for your cruise on your online cruise planner.)

In order to check in online for your cruise, you’ll need to have your passport (or other identifying documents if you’re taking a short Bahamas cruise) and the credit card you’ll be using for your online expenses. This will be the primary info you’ll need to input during the online check-in. You’ll also need to tell the cruise line what your transportation plans before and after the cruise are.

Here’s a little secret about online check in – they ask you a LOT of questions, but you don’t have to answer them all. They try to throw in some sneaky marketing questions, like asking you how many cruises you’ve been on before – don’t spend your brain power trying to count them in your head if you don’t know the number right away. Many of the fields in your online check-in are nonessential and you can leave them blank.

You’ll also be asked to designate an emergency contact – this has to be someone who is not on the cruise with you – and provide a phone number for that person.

As part of the process, you’ll be asked to accept a contract that sets out the terms of your cruise – one day, I’m going to have one of my lawyer friends read this and write a blog post on what it actually says. But for now, since you won’t be able to check in unless you accept it, you might as well go ahead.

You’ll enter each passenger’s passport info and add a credit card for your onboard account (if you want, each passenger can have a separate card) before you finish the process. When you’re done, you’ll have two things. The first is something that’s akin to a boarding pass – each cruise line has its own name for this document. You’ll print this out, sign it, and bring it with you to your cruise.

You’ll also get paper baggage tags that you can print out and affix to the luggage that you’re bringing on your cruise; you’ll want to print these out too, one for every piece of luggage you’re planning to bring, and preferably in color if possible. (You don’t need a tag for smaller bags that you plan to carry on the ship.) These tags are for your “checked” luggage, which will be dropped off at the terminal when you arrive and later delivered to your cabin on the ship.

Checking bags onto a cruise ship works a little differently than on, say, an airplane flight. When you get to the cruise port, before you go inside the terminal, you hand your larger bags off to a porter, who will put it on a large cart full of luggage to be taken onto the ship. It must have a bag tag attached, or the porter will write one out for you. Only bags small enough to fit through a standard scanner (like you’d find at an airport) can be carried on to the ship.

The tagged baggage you give to the porter will show up later in the day at your door, but keep in mind that it might be a while, so you might want to bring a swimsuit or a change of clothes in your carry-on bag for the first day. You should also to make sure to keep any important medicines with you in your carry-on, just in case your bag gets misplaced!

Once you’re checked in, and your boarding pass and luggage tags are printed up, you’re ready to go on your cruise! I recommend putting your boarding pass in the same place as your passports, so you’ll make sure to bring both of them with you. Happy cruising!

This is the second of a series of posts designed to provide advice for planning and preparing for your cruise vacation. You can read the first post here and the third post here.

My husband likes to joke that planning for a trip is the best part – even better than actually taking the trip! While it’s true that research actually does back him up, sort of, I’m not sure I totally agree. But planning for a cruise is fun – and in many cases, it’s an important part of making sure you have an enjoyable trip, too.

Of course, you could walk on your cruise ship with nothing planned ahead of time, and you might still have a wonderful time. But if planning really is a big part of the fun, why not do some of that too? Here are a few of my thoughts on things that you should plan before your cruise, especially for those of you who may be new to cruising, or who might be back after taking several years’ break. (If you’re cruising on a newer, bigger ship – such as the Royal Caribbean Oasis or Anthem Class – make sure to read this section #4 below about reservations for entertainment and Broadway-style shows.)

Food and drinks. When I started cruising in earnest in the 2000s, we often joked about being afraid of our onboard bill at the end of the week, because we’d racked up such a large tab at the bar. 😉 Today’s cruises offer an alternative to this big-bill-panic: The unlimited beverage package. There are lots of opinions on the web about whether you should buy a beverage package (also here and here), and of course I have my own thoughts too. But one thing is clear: If you are going to buy a beverage package, you should absolutely do so before your cruise, as the prices will be cheaper and the cruise lines will sometimes offer pre-cruise sales.Another new trend is cruising is what’s called specialty dining. These are meal options that aren’t included in your basic cruise fare; they’re often somewhat more upscale and the service and setting are more intimate than the main dining room. These options vary from cruise line to cruise line; for instance, Royal Caribbean’s specialty restaurants often charge a flat fee, where Norwegian’s tend to charge a la carte. If you want to check these options out, I’d highly suggest that you look online in your cruise planner for special offers, as you can often get a deal by buying your specialty dining ahead of your cruise.

Shore excursions. As a frequent cruiser, I’ve become much more DIY about my schedule when a cruise is in port. I often do some research myself and sometimes just wind up walking around the port city, especially if it’s a place I’ve not been to before. But if you’d rather have someone do the work for you, you might want to consider a shore excursion, which is a preplanned tour at your cruise port. You can buy these through the cruise line by visiting the online site before your cruise, or you can do this on board your cruise. Planning and buying ahead, however, guarantees you a space in the excursion of your choice, and sometimes you might even find your excursion slightly discounted by buying ahead.

Internet access. As a travel agent and blogger, I pretty much need to have access to the internet at all times. (Also, I might be a little addicted to Twitter, haha.) Maybe you like to take your cruise vacations as an opportunity to disconnect from the world, and you don’t need internet access. That’s great! But if you do want to buy an internet package, you should look to do so before your trip and purchase online. You’ll usually get much lower prices this way than if you buy internet on the ship. Most cruise lines offer a variety of packages at different price points. (My husband and I tend to buy the package for 1 device and share the access – it just means that we can’t both be logged on at the same time, but we can work around that.)

Entertainment. Traditionally, you could attend cruise ships’ nightly entertainment shows by simply walking into the theater and taking a seat. But on many of today’s cruise ships, entertainment is a far cry from the shows I saw when I first started cruising with my mom in the 1990s. Royal Caribbean, in particular, has really amped up its entertainment game with shows like Grease (Harmony and Independence of the Seas), Cats (Oasis of the Seas), Hairspray (Symphony of the Seas), and my favorite, Mamma Mia (Allure of the Seas). Due to increased demand – and the ever-increasing number of passengers on these cruise ships – you now have to pre-book your reservations for many shows on these ships. In many cases, you can opt to join a walk-up line on the day of the show, but if you want to ensure that you won’t be left out in the cold, pre-booking your reservations is the way to go.

You can also book spa treatments and other on-board amenities and activities before your cruise – or if you prefer, you can wait until you’re on the cruise and see if the mood strikes you. After all, you’re on vacation!

Let’s face facts: It’s (usually) more expensive to cruise by yourself than it is to cruise with someone else (or multiple someone elses). And while I understand the reason for that, it doesn’t really seem fair at all, especially when you’re not particularly traveling solo by choice. Believe me, as someone who was single until I was almost 35 years old, I get it!

If you’re traveling by yourself, here are a few things you can do to travel solo and still keep your costs reasonable:

Be vigilant on checking fares, and/or engage a travel agent to help you with this. I booked my first solo cruise, a 4-day Bahamas cruise on Majesty of the Seas, when I noticed that the price had dropped to a very reasonable $184.00 per person, which made my total cost as a solo cruiser around $400. This price is definitely an outlier: The cruise was on December 4th, which is a traditionally slow time for cruising; the price I saw when I booked didn’t last very long, likely because a number of people had the same idea that I did! But that leads me to my next suggestion…

If you want to cruise solo, target times of the year that are traditionally slow so that you can find the lowest prices for your cruise fare. In the US, this tends to be the times between New Year’s and Spring Break (mid-January to early March), the dreaded second half of the hurricane season (mid-September to late October), and post-Thanksgiving through the holiday season (late November to mid-December).If cruise prices are low to start, you’ll find that paying a double fare isn’t quite so painful. For instance, the hubby and I took advantage of a sale and booked a 7-night cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas that came to a ridiculously low total price of $898. Even for one person, that would have been a deal – plus that one person would have gotten double Crown and Anchor loyalty points! Which leads to another point:

Consider a studio cabin – these are cabins that are designed (and priced) specifically for single occupancy – but consider carefully. Norwegian Cruise Lines has made a point of including studio cabins on its new build ships, and these are good options for solo travelers. (I was in one for 12 nights myself and found it to be perfectly pleasant.)However, the number of solo cabins is limited, so the dynamics of supply and demand aren’t always in the solo traveler’s favor, especially on popular sailings. You might actually find it cheaper to pay the extra fare in a (double occupancy) inside cabin than to pay the studio rate. (This was the case on my Bliss sailing, but I stuck with the studio because I wanted to check out that kind of cabin.)

Studio cabins can save you some money over paying the extra fare in a double-occupancy room, but if you’re loyal to a particular cruise line, they may not be the best bang for your buck. On my Majesty cruise, I received double Crown and Anchor points for traveling solo in a traditional double room, which allowed me to reach the Diamond level in Royal Caribbean’s loyalty program. If you calculate the number of points earned per dollar spent, you’ll find it’s much more efficient to pay double in a traditional room; however, on a longer or more expensive cruise, this might simply put the trip out of your price range. And we wouldn’t want to do that!

Just as a reminder, I’m not only a travel blogger, I’m also a travel agent! So if you’re interested in learning more about opportunities for solo travel, you can fill out this form and I’ll be happy to help you find your best options for a solo cruise. You can also follow me on Facebook, where I’ll be posting last-minute and solo travel deals.

I’ve been extremely lucky to put my career as a college professor on hold for a year while I get started as a travel agent and do some (pretty fun) research about all sorts of cruise experiences. One thing I’ve learned is that I’m a pretty big fan of cruising solo.

What I wanted to talk about today is the thing we don’t like to talk about, especially if we like to travel a lot: Money.

I think it helps a lot to think about the business of cruising, something I allude to in my post about finding deals on last-minute cruises. The cruise industry has built itself around the premise of double occupancy – that is, that each 2-person cabin will be occupied by two people.

Sometimes, of course, a cabin will be occupied by more than two people: When a family brings kids, for instance, or when more budget-conscious cruisers decide to put three or four people in a room to cut down on costs. Often, though, you’ll find that third and fourth passengers are heavily discounted or even free – this becomes cost-effective for the cruisers, but not really too great for the cruise company’s bottom line.

It’s easy to compare a cruise ship cabin to a hotel room: We don’t pay any differently to have one or two people stay in a hotel. But of course, the costs to the company of a cruise ship passenger extend much farther than the costs of a hotel room occupant (food, staff in the kids clubs, extra use of resources like toilet paper, etc). The cruise line is willing to discount third and fourth passengers because often they’re kids, and frankly, no one is probably going to pay full price to jam four people into a 180-sq-ft cabin no matter how great the cruise is.

But here’s where things get tricky: When a cruise ship cabin is occupied by only one person, instead of two, the problem isn’t that the cruise company uses additional resources. It’s that the company doesn’t recoup its expected costs, which it plans to use to pay staff like waiters and stewards and do all of the other things it needs to do to run the cruise, because it only has one paying customer in the cabin, not two.

Because of this, many cruise lines will charge what’s often known as a “single supplement” or “solo supplement” to account for the expected fare that’s not being paid by a second passenger. In truth, I think this is a bad way to look at it: Really, you’re just paying for a second person, even though that person isn’t actually there. (You do pay the fare, but not the taxes and port fees, which is why cruising single is often roughly double the cost of cruising with someone else.)

As a solo cruiser myself, I’d love it if the cruise lines would change their policies to be more in line with the hotel industry, but I understand why it’s not possible. So in the next post, I’ll look at what you can do to book a solo cruise that’s affordable and realistic.

As you know from this blog, I plan most of my cruises at pretty short notice. We booked our cruise to Cuba just one week before departure, and most of our recent cruises have been booked around 2-3 months ahead of time. (I find that this is a great way to find deals on cruises with a lot of rooms left to fill!)

But in February 2017, I did something unusual: I booked a cruise for a whole 12+ months ahead of time. The sailing was the inaugural transatlantic of the newly built Norwegian Bliss. I picked this ship and this trip for a few reasons, but one of the main ones was that I wanted to check out Norwegian’s solo cabins, which can be found (in abundance!) on the Bliss and other new-build Norwegian ships including Escape, Breakaway, and Getaway.

At the point where I decided to take the cruise on the Bliss, I’d never cruised solo before. So as a sort of test cruise, I took a short 4-night cruise by myself on the Majesty of the Seas – and I loved it! Now, it’s important to say that I do love traveling with other people – cruising is a great way to spend time with friends, and I love cruising with my husband, who had never cruised before we met a few years ago. But any kind of traveling with another person requires some planning, and some compromising – and sometimes, to be honest, I just don’t want to do that!

As I’m writing this blog post, I’m on day 3 of my 12-day transatlantic on the Bliss. So far, it’s been a lovely, relaxing time – and this has been a great ship for exploring. I’m planning to use the time on our nine (!) sea days to write up plenty of blog posts and share lots of pictures with you!

Royal Caribbean has recently introduced its fourth Oasis-class (read: big) cruise ship, the Symphony of the Seas. She joins her sister ships Oasis, Allure, and Harmony of the Seas, and the four ships share a number of common characteristics.

One of my first Royal cruises was on Allure of the Seas in 2015. It was a transatlantic, and we loved it – we had eight sea days, and we never ran short of things to do. It was almost like we’d moved to a new city! We had different restaurants to eat at every day and there was always something to do – go to the gym, go to the casino, participate in the onboard activities, etc. The entertainment was fantastic – Allure’s performance of Mamma Mia was just as good as the one I saw in the West End in London. The variety of public spaces on the Oasis-class is also one of my favorite things about the class – I love the Central Park area myself, but I can see where if I had kids, I would want to take them to the Boardwalk. Just look at that carousel!

One of the things that surprised me about the Oasis-class ships was that they didn’t feel overly crowded. On our Harmony cruise, we had three sea days, where all passengers were on board. Even still, we often found decks full of empty chairs, and we didn’t really see a huge crowd in the Windjammer until the very last day.

As much as I loved our two Oasis-class cruises, I’m not sure I would recommend this kind of ship for everyone. On our most recent cruise, on Harmony of the Seas, the hubby and I agreed that, well, it didn’t really feel like we were on a cruise ship. Everything on the ship seemed to face in, not out, and there were very few places we had to just sit and look at the ocean. (We didn’t have an oceanview or outside balcony room.) We still enjoyed our experience, of course – the entertainment was still stellar, and we feel like the range of specialty restaurants on the Oasis class ships is a real bonus. But the size of the ship felt like a real inconvenience on Harmony, because our room was all the way at the front of the ship – I felt like we spent so much of our time walking down the hallway to our cabin.

You love entertainment on your cruises. With Broadway-style shows and a variety of music venues, there’s always something to watch or listen to on the Oasis class of ships.

You’re traveling with a bigger group, or with kids. Your group will never get bored and will always have a place to hang out, and your children will love the variety of slides and rides, not to mention the ship’s dedicated children’s activities.

You like fine dining – the Oasis class has some of the best specialty restaurants in the fleet. Our meal at 150 Central Park on Harmony of the Seas was one of the best I’ve ever had! (You can read my post on getting this dining at a discount here.)

You love seeing the latest and greatest the cruise industry has to offer. The Oasis-class ships are the newest and primarily they have all the bells and whistles.

You like an energetic vacation with a lot of activities – as I said, you’ll never be bored on an Oasis-class ship (even if you spend eight days at sea like I did!).

While the ships in the Oasis class are great options, they might not be the best fit for some cruisers – and that’s okay! If the following describes you, you might want to think about taking a cruise on an older, smaller ship:

You like to sit on a lounge chair and look out at the ocean. Sure, the bigger ships do have lounge chairs (you just saw pictures of them earlier), but you’ll find significantly less places where you can do this on the newer ships.

You don’t like to walk a lot, or have difficulty walking a lot. The big ships are, well, big. You might find that you spend a lot of time walking from one end to another, or planning your day so you don’t have to do so – and that’s not always what you want to have to do when you’re on vacation.

You consider yourself an “old-school” cruiser. This point might be a little controversial, and certainly I’ve met plenty of long-time cruisers on Oasis-class ships that love these new ships. But these new, big ships often attract a different breed of cruiser, one who doesn’t much care for the traditional formalities such as dress codes in the dining room (you’ll see a lot of shorts). If that’s something that bothers you, then maybe the Oasis-class ships aren’t for you.

Would I book another cruise on an Oasis-class ship? You bet I would, especially to see Mamma Mia or Hairspray (on Allure or Symphony), eat at 150 Central Park, etc. As a travel agent, though, I just think it’s important that people know what they’re getting into. If you’re interested in finding out more about the Oasis class or booking a cruise, click here to contact me!

(You can read Part I about cruise pricing and last minute deals here.)

So, what does all of this mean for you, the aspiring last-minute-deal-getting cruiser? Well, I’ve spent the last few months actively pursuing these deals, and I’ve learned a few things that can help your chances.

Be flexible. There’s a reason that so many people on cruises (especially out of the U.S.) are retired and/or live in Florida! Of course, this isn’t something that everyone can do: People have children or pets to make arrangements for, work schedules that they can’t move around, etc. If you live far from the cruise port, the savings you get for booking a last-minute deal might be gobbled up by the cost of buying airfare at the last minute (this is pretty much what happened with our last-minute Cuba cruise). But if you can be flexible with your travel times, you’ll have more chance of finding a good deal on a last-minute cruise.

Lower your expectations. Understand that you might not get the type of cabin, or the location, that you like or are used to. When you book late, you don’t get a very good selection of available cabins. In order to get the best deals, you might even need to take a guarantee room option (where the cruise line picks your room for you) or take a different type of cabin than you’re used to, like an inside or oceanview room instead of a balcony.

Be open to new possibilities. Let’s say you’re the type of person who always like to cruise in a certain region, or on a certain ship or class of cruise ships. Well, the more you narrow your options, the less likely you are to find that great deal. If you’re open to new options, you might find a better deal – and who knows, you might even find a new favorite cruise destination!

Work with a travel agent. This one might seem a little self-serving, because, well, I am a travel agent. But if your travel agent knows this kind of cruises you’re interested in, and your relative level of flexibility, she can notify you when last-minute deals become available, such as Royal Caribbean’s Going Going Gone rates or Celebrity’s Exciting Deals. (Note: For some reason I don’t quite understand, these sites are quite frequently offline. Try checking back another day.) You can check these deals yourself, of course, or you can sign up for e-mail newsletter from a web site like Cruise Critic. But your travel agent can be your best ally in the search for cruise deals – especially if she’s a natural-born bargain hunter, like me! As travel agents, we can also see which ships have a lot of available cabins – a good piece of information to have as you try to win this supply-and-demand based game.

Happy (bargain) hunting! If you’re interested in working with me to help you find your next cruise, you can fill out this contact form.

Posts navigation

Who Is the Nerdy Traveler?

Hi, I’m Jessalynn! In 2017, I started this blog to share my love of cruising and other travel and give tips to other travelers. I’m also training as a travel agent to book cruises. Visit my web site at http://www.thenerdytraveler.com for more!